"You must excuse me, Sir," said the girl, again gracefully curtsying; "I am exceedingly sorry to be obliged to refuse a gentleman of your appearance; but singing requires an alternate enlargement and contraction of the glottis, an elevation and depression of the larynx, and an elongation and shortening of the neck, very difficult to be performed with a pail of milk upon one's head."
"Set down the pail, then," said Clara.
"Indeed I can't, Sir; for I have not a moment to spare. I just met some gentlemen of my acquaintance on the hill, and as I expect them here every moment, I must snatch an instant or two to arrange my toilette."
"Gentlemen of your acquaintance!" cried the mother; "what gentlemen can you have met with here, child, that know you?"
"My cousin John that went for a soldier some time since, and a party of his companions."
"And what brings them in these parts? No good, I fear; for John was always a wild good-for-nothing lad."
"It is no evil, I assure you, mother," said
